Mobility Analysis and Type Synthesis with Screw Theory: From Rigid Body Linkages to Compliant Mechanisms

Author(s):  
Hai-Jun Su ◽  
Lifeng Zhou ◽  
Ying Zhang
Author(s):  
Morgan D. Murphy ◽  
Ashok Midha ◽  
Larry L. Howell

Abstract The formulation of design procedures for rigid-body mechanisms has benefited from the application of type-synthesis techniques. Therefore, with modifications to allow for inclusions of compliance, type synthesis is seen as a useful tool in the design of compliant mechanisms. Previous efforts have developed methods that result in a large number of possible design solutions to a given problem. This paper deals primarily with the development of a simplified compliant-mechanism type-synthesis methodology that limits the number of design solutions considered. The techniques are derived by modifying existing compliant mechanism type-synthesis techniques to yield a simpler model with greater pragmatic value.


Author(s):  
Hai-Jun Su ◽  
Denis V. Dorozhkin ◽  
Judy M. Vance

This paper presents a screw theory based approach for the type synthesis of compliant mechanisms with flexures. We provide a systematic formulation of the constraint-based approach which has been mainly developed by precision engineering experts in designing precision machines. The two fundamental concepts in the constraint-based approach, constraint and freedom, can be represented mathematically by a wrench and a twist in screw theory. For example, an ideal wire flexure applies a translational constraint which can be described a wrench of pure force. As a result, the design rules of the constraint-based approach can be systematically formulated in the format of screws and screw systems. Two major problems in compliant mechanism design, constraint pattern analysis and constraint pattern design are discussed with examples in details. This innovative method paves the way for introducing computational techniques into the constraint-based approach for the synthesis and analysis of compliant mechanisms.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongchuan Zhang ◽  
Benliang Zhu ◽  
Xianmin Zhang

Compliant kaleidocycles can be widely used in a variety of applications, including deployable structures, origami structures, and metamorphic robots, due to their unique features of continuous rotatability and multistability. Inspired by origami kaleidocycles, a type of symmetric multistable compliant mechanism with an arbitrary number of units is presented and analyzed in this paper. First, the basic dimension constraints are developed based on mobility analysis using screw theory. Second, the kinematic relationships of the actual rotation angle are obtained. Third, a method to determine the number of stabilities and the position of stable states, including the solution for the parameterized boundaries of stable regions, is developed. Finally, experimental platforms are established, and the validity of the proposed multistable mechanisms is verified.


Author(s):  
Guangbo Hao ◽  
Haiyang Li

This paper proposes conceptual designs of multi-degree(s) of freedom (DOF) compliant parallel manipulators (CPMs) including 3-DOF translational CPMs and 6-DOF CPMs using a building block based pseudo-rigid-body-model (PRBM) approach. The proposed multi-DOF CPMs are composed of wire-beam based compliant mechanisms (WBBCMs) as distributed-compliance compliant building blocks (CBBs). Firstly, a comprehensive literature review for the design approaches of compliant mechanisms is conducted, and a building block based PRBM is then presented, which replaces the traditional kinematic sub-chain with an appropriate multi-DOF CBB. In order to obtain the decoupled 3-DOF translational CPMs (XYZ CPMs), two classes of kinematically decoupled 3-PPPR (P: prismatic joint, R: revolute joint) translational parallel mechanisms (TPMs) and 3-PPPRR TPMs are identified based on the type synthesis of rigid-body parallel mechanisms, and WBBCMs as the associated CBBs are further designed. Via replacing the traditional actuated P joint and the traditional passive PPR/PPRR sub-chain in each leg of the 3-DOF TPM with the counterpart CBBs (i.e. WBBCMs), a number of decoupled XYZ CPMs are obtained by appropriate arrangements. In order to obtain the decoupled 6-DOF CPMs, an orthogonally-arranged decoupled 6-PSS (S: spherical joint) parallel mechanism is first identified, and then two example 6-DOF CPMs are proposed by the building block based PRBM method. It is shown that, among these designs, two types of monolithic XYZ CPM designs with extended life have been presented.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Sun ◽  
Jonathan B. Hopkins

This paper introduces a general method for analyzing flexure systems of any configuration, including those that cannot be broken into parallel and serial subsystems. Such flexure systems are called interconnected hybrid flexure systems because they possess limbs with intermediate bodies that are connected by flexure systems or elements. Specifically, the method introduced utilizes screw algebra and graph theory to help designers determine the freedom spaces (i.e., the geometric shapes that represent all the ways a body is permitted to move) for all the bodies joined together by compliant flexure elements within interconnected hybrid flexure systems (i.e., perform mobility analysis of general flexure systems). This method also allows designers to determine (i) whether such systems are under-constrained or not and (ii) whether such systems are over-constrained or exactly constrained (i.e., perform constraint analysis of general flexure systems). Although many flexure-based precision motion stages, compliant mechanisms, and microarchitectured materials possess topologies that are highly interconnected, the theory for performing the mobility and constraint analysis of such interconnected flexure systems using traditional screw theory does not currently exist. The theory introduced here lays the foundation for an automated tool that can rapidly generate the freedom spaces of every rigid body within a general flexure system without having to perform traditional computationally expensive finite element analysis. Case studies are provided to demonstrate the utility of the proposed theory.


1987 ◽  
Vol 109 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Her ◽  
A. Midha

While much has been contributed to techniques for enumerating and identifying rigid-body mechanisms in the past decades, proportionally little has been accomplished in this regard in compliant mechanisms design. This paper deals primarily with identification and discussion of important kinematic properties of compliant mechanisms. To facilitate these appropriate terminology is developed at the very fundamental level. The conventional degrees-of-freedom concept for a rigid-body chain is briefly reviewed. It is then used to help define a compliance number (or degrees-of-compliance) concept for characterizing compliant mechanisms. Finally, a systematic and convenient approach is presented, enabling the type synthesis of this class of mechanisms.


Author(s):  
Morgan D. Murphy ◽  
Ashok Midha ◽  
Larry L. Howell

Abstract Type synthesis of rigid-link mechanisms provides a means to determine mechanism topologies before considering link dimensions. The formulation of design procedures for rigid-body mechanisms has benefited from the application of type synthesis techniques. Therefore, type synthesis is seen as a useful tool in the development of design procedures for compliant mechanisms as well. The focus of this paper is to propose and exemplify a design procedure for compliant mechanisms that employs the type synthesis techniques developed for compliant mechanisms.


Author(s):  
Morgan D. Murphy ◽  
Ashok Midha ◽  
Larry L. Howell

Abstract Following the topological synthesis of mechanisms, a topological analysis constitutes the second phase of the type-synthesis process. Topological analysis involves investigating distinct ways of specifying inputs, outputs and joint types to satisfy the functional requirements. For compliant mechanisms, the number of possible input combinations is typically much greater than for their rigid-body counterparts. Therefore, a systematic approach to input specification is required. This paper deals primarily with the development of a systematic input specification procedure for compliant mechanisms, while building on the rigid-body type-synthesis techniques and the terminology previously established for compliant elements. The techniques developed are straightforward and may be easily automated.


Author(s):  
Frederick Sun ◽  
Jonathan B. Hopkins

This paper introduces a general method for determining the mobility analysis of flexure systems of any complexity, including those that can’t be broken into parallel and serial flexure subsystems. Such systems are called interconnected hybrid flexure systems because they possess limbs with intermediate bodies that are connected by flexure systems or elements. The method in this paper utilizes screw algebra and graph theory to enable designers to determine the freedom spaces (i.e., the geometric shapes that represent all the ways a body is permitted to move) for all the bodies joined together by compliant flexure elements within interconnected hybrid flexure systems. Although many flexure-based precision motion stages, compliant mechanisms, and microarchitectured materials possess topologies that are highly interconnected, the theory for performing a mobility analysis of such interconnected flexure systems using traditional screw theory does not currently exist. The theory introduced here lays the foundation for an automated tool that can rapidly generate the freedom spaces of every rigid body within a general flexure system without having to perform traditional computationally expensive finite element analysis. Case studies are provided in the paper to demonstrate the utility of the proposed theory.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongquan Li ◽  
Yang Zhang ◽  
Lijie Zhang

Abstract The current type synthesis of the redundant actuated parallel mechanisms is adding active-actuated kinematic branches on the basis of the traditional parallel mechanisms, or using screw theory to perform multiple getting intersection and union to complete type synthesis. The number of redundant parallel mechanisms obtained by these two methods is limited. In this paper, based on Grassmann line geometry and Atlas method, a novel and effective method for type synthesis of redundant actuated parallel mechanisms (PMs) with closed-loop units is proposed. Firstly, the degree of freedom (DOF) and constraint line graph of the moving platform are determined successively, and redundant lines are added in constraint line graph to obtain the redundant constraint line graph and their equivalent line graph, and a branch constraint allocation scheme is formulated based on the allocation criteria. Secondly, a scheme is selected and redundant lines are added in the branch chains DOF graph to construct the redundant actuated branch chains with closed-loop units. Finally, the branch chains that meet the requirements of branch chains configuration criteria and F&C (degree of freedom & constraint) line graph are assembled. In this paper, two types of 2 rotational and 1 translational (2R1T) redundant actuated parallel mechanisms and one type of 2 translational and 1 rotational (2T1R) redundant actuated parallel mechanisms with few branches and closed-loop units were taken as examples, and 238, 92 and 15 new configurations were synthesized. All the mechanisms contain closed-loop units, and the mechanisms and the actuators both have good symmetry. Therefore, all the mechanisms have excellent comprehensive performance, in which the two rotational DOFs of the moving platform of 2R1T redundant actuated parallel mechanism can be independently controlled. The instantaneous analysis shows that all mechanisms are not instantaneous, which proves the feasibility and practicability of the method.


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